Tamale Lady banned from Zeitgeist

Virginia Ramos, also known as the Tamale Lady, claps as she greets the patrons for her birthday at a party put on by Zeitgeist. The bar has been throwing birthday parties for Ramos since 2003 because it is one of her favorite haunts. Now, it’s not allowing her to sell tamales anymore. Photo: The Chronicle

Just as she has been doing for over 20 years, Virginia Ramos, a.k.a. The Tamale Lady, takes a fresh batch of tamales, that she will later peddle inside local businesses, off the stove in her kitchen. Mobile vendors need to use a licensed commercial kitchen. Photo: The Chronicle/Mike Kepka

Tamale terror has hit the Mission. This morning, Zeitgeistannounced that Virginia Ramos — better known by her superhero-like pseudonym, the Tamale Lady — has been banned from selling her namesake treats at the bar:

We are sad to announce that the Tamale Lady may no longer sell her tamales at Zeitgeist. This is forced on us by SF city codes and regulations.

Ramos is a San Francisco institution unto herself, slinging tamales to drunken bar patrons at all hours of the day and night. There’s even an app for finding her. In particular, Ramos’ home-away-from-home has been Zeitgeist, where she’s been hustling for over 20 years. As Joe Garofoli put it in his great 2003 piece on her, the Tamale Lady is “one of those transcendent characters that San Francisco nurtures best.”

It’s nothing new that technically Ramos operates outside the law — see Rachel Gordon’s story last year about how bar owners could technically have been thrown in jail for 90 days and fined $500 for allowing the Tamale Lady (or other similar vendors) to sell food on their premises, thanks to an outdated law.

According to the bar, this new ban comes from the health department.

Richard Lee, Director of Food Safety Program at the Department of Public Health, says he’s not sure if one of his inspectors recently visited Zeitgeist and sparked today’s crackdown. However, the department has been making an effort to get more unlicensed vendors permitted. He says that the Tamale Lady controversy is most likely a very simple case, and one that has nothing to do with Zeitgeist per se.

“Based on what I know, she is an illegal vendor. She probably couldn’t sell anywhere, because she has no permits,” he says. “You just can’t go out and sell food on the street. She needs a mobile food facility permit.”

For more on the lore and greatness of the Tamale Lady — and her longtime relationship with Zeitgeist — you should read Garofoli’s 2003 profile. And do note that she’s still making the rounds (just not at Zeitgeist), and is having a birthday party at the Eagle next week.